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AMD Offers Women Geek Dating Advice
Blacklaw writes "It appears AMD has decided to branch out from integrated circuits and enter the romance market with a handy guide for girls to land themselves a geeky guy. From the article: 'In a blog post written by Leslie Sobon, the company's vice president of marketing, Sobon describes her life in the largely male-dominated world of technology as being "mostly surrounded by guys all day," but says: "I can tell you that — in general — technical guys are pretty cool," and offers advice on how girls can land a geek guy. Although clearly meant in a lighthearted way, Sobon's missive serves to patronize both her company's customers — who, we learn, are socially inept and bad dressers — and women, who apparently can't understand technology and need to find a nice man who can "fix the TV, your PC, and the sprinkler system" along with other magical item s far too complex for the poor female brain to comprehend.'"
Dear everyone,
Please stop taking every so damned seriously.
Thank you,
Byron
Seriously, if a nice girl's just willing to strike up a conversation with us, she's already miles ahead in my book without having to learn how to parrot stupid lines about x86 vs. ARM.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
If a male wrote this drivel, he'd at the minimum. be fired, and there's a good chance he'd be sued for sexual harrasment as well. But if a woman writes it? No penalties at all.
As long as they are not butt ugly (or fat) (or both) a teen o 20-something woman can pretty mcuh get any kind of man they desire.
Lucky beeotches.
Us men on the other hand have to work at it, and hear the word "no" or simply derisive laughter about 9 times out of 10 attempts.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I know. I accidentally the whole thing, and yet I can still it lightheartedly.
We are both into the same nerdy things (comics, video games, movies, etc) but we are into different TYPES of comics, video games, movies, etc. This allowed us to expand each other's exposure to our favorites, while still the same things. It gave us a lot to bond over during the early part of our relationship, and that helped us reach the point where we got married.
The overlap in the details of our common interests got the ball rolling, and the differences in the details of our common interests kept it rolling.
Living With a Nerd
Well, if you read the actual blog post instead of that jackass written article, you will find the blog is actually pretty light and makes little, if any offensive comments or insinuations. Really, it's pretty cut and dry and somewhat silly. So, after three posts, I've decided Gareth Halfacree is a total douchebag, and the author of the blog itself, Leslie Sobon comes off as pretty date-able. Also, I posted three separate times because everything is better in triplicates, and work is extremely slow today.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Don't they realize that if all their smart geeky employees start getting laid regularly they'll quickly lose motivation to work ridiculous hours for less pay than their superiors who don't do anything?
If geeks start getting laid, the American economy will collapse, since geeks is all we really have left. I, for one, think that the sexual activities of geeks should be heavily monitored and controlled by the government to ensure their continued general dissatisfaction with human relations. It must be done; for the sake of our children, for the sake of American prosperity.
p.s. I'm moving to Germany (Gottingen) next week.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
wind up with people who believe in dating strategies: shallow reptilian posers who look at other people like predators do.
But people who act like themselves, meet people who are actually interested in them. When you act like yourself, and follow no strategy at all, you form genuine lasting bonds based on your actual real personality and character.
Strategy, when it comes to meeting someone of the opposite sex you are interested in forming a lasting meaningful bond with, is failure. Because strategy is about conquest when relationships are about humanity. So the best strategy when it comes to forming a human bond with other human beings is absence of strategy. The less you try, the better you do, because without the sword and armor people see you for what you really are. Not everyone will like the real you, but its better to lead without the sword and armor, because if you build a relationship based on the sword and armor, you eventually have to take those things off, they cost too much to maintain, and the person you wooed with the sword and armor won't like what they see, and feel betrayed, since they were sold on the sword and armor.
Unless you are just looking to get laid. In which case, you should be concerned with nothing more than tactical warfare.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm not sure my wife could name any of the programming languages that I have used in my career. And that doesn't bother me.
I don't need my partner to be interested in the specifics of my work. When I am upset or frustrated about work, or want to talk about what I did that day, generalities are fine, because honestly, unless you were on the same project I was on, it wouldn't make much sense no matter what level of vocabulary you had.
I've had the experience of dating a girl very seriously who was beautiful, highly intelligent, and an excellent system administrator. And our shared language and work/hobby interests did nothing to smooth over the rocky spots in our relationship, and while initially it made me much more attracted to her, in retrospect it was perhaps novelty more than anything else. IOW, her qualities as a person were considerably more important than her "job" as a sysadmin or her interests as "a geek", and our ideology and personality clashes eventually overshadowed our mutual geekyness.
_My_ advice to women who are interested in geeky guys is
1) be accessible. Women _baffle_ men, and geeks are used to being able to come up with valid mental models to predict the behavior of complex things. But this is regularly less successful than we would like when applied to girls. (See xkcd: http://xkcd.com/55/)
This means, when we work up the nerve to ask questions or chat, use accomodating body language. Listen, and ask clarifying questions to help draw us out more. Don't act like we have the plague -- we probably don't.
2) Expect to be challenged. Challenge back. Most geeks will want to have an authentic relationship. We will, like all asshole men, project our values, expectations, and ideas about women on to you, but we're better off if you challenge us when we do that. Not like "STFU you patriarch bastard", but actually engage us in a discussion about why we are wrong. You don't have to care about what we do, but you do need to demonstrate critical thinking skills. We, by and large, do not have serious relationships with people who are very beautiful but very dim and self centered. They are eye and arm candy, but not for serious relationships.
3) We are usually not eye and arm candy.
(To be fair, we're not asking you to be either -- very often :))
If we need to shave more or dress better or whatever to meet your expectations regarding house-broken mammals, we will probably not understand, and we will probably resist any attempts by you to guilt us or shame us into complying. Explain why it is important to you _personally_, and work things from that angle. There will be some amount of ideological opposition, but usually you'll luck out by appealing to the pragmatist within us.
4) Don't be ashamed of who you are or what your interests are. The AMD lady's advice is pretty bad I think -- if you're not interested in CPU types, don't pretend to be. Some of us love explaining that stuff to anyone who will listen, and others would rather not tell you if you cannot be bothered to find out for yourself. But don't patronize us and imply that you are interested when you really aren't.
5) Many of the same problems between men and women apply to geek men and women. We have pride, we desperately want your respect, it is important (to varying degrees) to us to be approved of by you. Often, we are better at expressing our anger and frustration in words, but not always. Some of us are alcoholics, quick to anger, and some of us will hurt you, because after all, we're still men, even when we're not tan and not rippling with muscle mass.
(PS: many of us are still confused about how we fit into a world that has a traditional yet evolving idea of what a "man" is. Yes, our grandpas fought wars, our dads worked in factories and enjoyed a stiff drink. Yet some of us don't like going outside. Somewhere inside all of us is the need to be a bit macho at times, but we're not always sure how.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
This is a photo of Leslie Sobon Alright, that's pretty good, but then these are also photos of Leslie: one two three four That's quite a range there, never know what you're going to get.
Are you new to dealing with human beings (I was going to say "women" but then realized even that was too narrow)?
Every single one of those pix looks like the same attractive woman. But people look a bit different from time to time, like when they are working vs when they are posing for an "image" shot. It is exactly the same with guys as with gals, except that you don't have the same "appearance police" mentality scrutinizing the guys for imperfections like you do with gals.
This reminds me of the candid paparazzi snaps of, say, Jennifer Aniston picking up some hygiene products on a midnight run to 7-11 at midnight in her sweats. Someone who is possibly the world's most beautiful woman (sorry Ashwariya) looks kind of dowdy under those conditions but she is still the same person and could look absolutely dazzling later in the morning. If she doesn't pass your "always must look beautiful test", its your problem not hers.
Guys who expect woman to be glamorous 24/7/365 are either very rich or idiots. Both sets are jerks.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
This isn't actually directed toward commodore64. I don't know the first thing about his love life. For all I know, he has a harem of eager sex slaves who worship the ground he walks on. It's really directed toward anyone who read his post and thought "Yeah! He's dead right!"
You have it backwards. It's much easier for an unattractive man to make himself attractive than an unattractive woman. That's because most women are attracted by the way we make them feel, not just how we look (looks don't hurt, but you might be surprised by how many "pretty boys" can get enough women with just their looks that that they never bother to develop a personality...which is much, much more important). How often have you seen a drop-dead gorgeous woman with some pathetic loser and you wondered why, knowing you'd be so much better for her? How often do you see a drop-dead gorgeous man with a hideous woman?
We're the lucky ones. Many women will tell you that men get more attractive with age. Not all, of course. But a surprisingly high percentage.
We do have to work at it. But talking to women is actually a lot more fun than it is work. If you're getting an instant "no" as soon as you walk up, or simple derisive laughter when you try to step things up a notch, you're doing something terribly, terribly wrong. Women are much more sensitive to social nuances than men, and they're much more polite and concerned about hurting other people's feelings. Sure, you'll run into the occasional bitch, but they're really few and far between.
If what you're doing isn't working, change what you're doing.
I can't believe I'm getting ready to post this on /.
If I were to give advice to women interested in a geek it would be this:
Most geeks are shy, and at least a bit socially awkward. You can't count on them to pick up subtle cues and you really can't count on them to make the first move. If you want to get to know them, go up to them, smile, and start up a conversation. They'll almost certainly chat with you.
Yes, it does mean that you have to risk rejection. Really, you can deal with it, guys deal with it all the time :D.
That is really all there is. If the relationship will work or all that other jazz, well you find that out as things progress, as with any relationship. The only real difference is that due to the generally shy, introverted nature of most geeks, you'll need to make the first move.
I suppose the other thing would be to understand that geeks do like computers and do want to chatter about them. That's fine, much as you might have an interest your boyfriend does not, it can be the same the other way around. You can still chatter about it. Just be prepared that he may want to talk technical. You can politely remind him that you don't understand it all, or simply ask, many geeks are happy to explain their hobbies in great detail if you wish.
You don't have to be fake, you don't have to pretend like you are a geek. You just have to be friendly and receptive.
Be nice and make the first move, I'd say you have a better than average chance of having a relationship if you want one.
Being able to dress like a successful adult male doesn't make you a douche. There is more to dressing than jeans, cargo shorts, and ironic t-shirts, and if you don't want to be one of the average-looking Old-Navy-wearing clones at the bar, maybe you should try varying your wardrobe a little. Sometimes jeans and a t-shirt are appropriate... sometimes it's fun (and productive, in terms of attracting women) to wear something a little nicer.
And, anecdotally, you'll attract more attention if you dress up a little - speaking as an average-looking guy who's 20-35 pounds overweight (depending on the day, and depending on what I ate...), sloppy untucked t-shirts & shorts just tend to look bad. Dress up, tuck your shirt in, and spend 5 minutes throwing some polish on your shoes, and suddenly you'll find that girls think you're a lot better looking.